Want to see Raider King content first? Add us as a preferred source.
Final Fantasy XIV players who have chosen to play the game on Microsoft’s Xbox series of consoles best be careful when posting about their status on Xbox, as Microsoft’s automated systems may strike you down for seemingly no reason.
In a tale recounted by the Reddit user u/TGB_B20kEn, they were banned from Xbox Live for posting that they were looking for a Free Company to join in Xbox’s Looking For a Group posts sections.
While players of Final Fantasy XIV know full well that free companies are the game’s equivalent to guilds, it seems that Xbox’s automated moderation was not informed about this. As TGB_B20kEn was banned for solicitation, a term used in relation to prostitution.
Despite this being a funny mistake on the surface, it is still baffling that a user can be banned for 61 whole days for asking about an in-game guild feature. At this time, TGB_B20kEn has filed an appeal and given no further update about the situation.
While it seems that this type of ban may be rare, TGB_B20kEn is not alone in being unfairly targeted for this. Some comments on the post mention tales of being banned for two days as a result of sharing their FFXIV Recruit-A-Friend codes!
This situation isn’t the first time in recent memory that Microsoft’s automated moderation systems have unfairly banned players for content they allow on their platform, as back in the late months of 2023 there was a controversy where players would be banned for sharing videos of an explicit scene in Baldur’s Gate 3 which involved a bear, despite Xbox themselves allowing video recording of the game!
For now, players can only sit back and be careful about asking people to join their Free Companies and hope that in the future Xbox’s systems will be updated not to automatically ban players for asking about in-game services.
Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn is currently available to purchase for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series S|X, and on PC via the Square Enix store.
